These Artisinal Ceramic, Wood, and Cork Speakers Are Cooler Than Your Fixie

We’re not poking fun at Joey Roth’s Ceramic Speaker System, Version 3, pictured above, because they are beautiful. But there is something about their combination of handmade construction, “honest” materials, and sleek design that make us think of Brooklyn — a place where I lived for years until a couple of months ago, and thus feel amply qualified to make sweeping statements about.

These speakers are made primarily out of porcelain, birch plywood, and cork, with an “analog” signal path (including a Tripath amp) — and if that doesn’t make you feel artisinal, nothing will, speakers-wise.

“I designed this system to be the anti-Jambox / Beats by Dre/ etc., both in terms of the natural materials used and the completely analog, true-to-source signal path,” Roth tells Evolver.fm. “My goal was to design a sound system that the user would not want to replace for many, many years.”

We haven’t heard these yet, but Roth has offered to send over a loaner unit, and we’re tempted to have a listen. If these sound as beautiful as they look, we’d connect them to our record player and rock some 180-gram limited-edition vinyl with pride.

Price depends on configuration — $1095 for the whole shmear, $495 for the two speakers and the amp, and $695 for that foxy subwoofer as a standalone unit.

Peep the gallery for the full splendidness (images courtesy of Joey Roth):